Myriaporones are a new class of marine polyketide-derived isolated from the bryozoan Myriapora truncata.

Myriaporones are disclosed to have antitumor activity. The complete structure for these related compounds was given by K. L. Rinehart et al., J. Nat. Prod. 1995, 58, 344 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,514,708. Myriaporones 3 and 4 described there are in an equilibrium mixture between the free hydroxy ketone and the hemiketal as indicated in the figure above.
There have been several unsuccessful attempts at the synthesis of myriaporones, see for example Taylor, R. E.; Ciavarri, J. C.; Hearn, B. R. “A Divergent Approach the Myriaporones and Tedanolide: Enantioselective Preparation of the Common Intermediate” Tetrahedron Lett. 1998, 39, 9361; Taylor et al., Org. Lett. 2002, 4, 2853, available on the Web 2 Aug. 2002.
In view of their interesting biological properties there is a need to provide an efficient, stereocontrolled total synthesis of myriaporones and related compounds.